Ask a Tax Lawyer about the Tax Law

I am sorry, but the legal duty to pay taxes cannot be voluntarily abrogated. There is no such thing as a "common law" right not to pay taxes. As
far as the Uniform Commercial Code is concerned, it is a statute that has been passed by all the state legislatures that governs the sale of goods.
The UCC has little to do with taxes.

You have no common law right to be free from the UCC. In fact, state legislatures are well within their constitutional authority to regulate
commercial activities within their borders. The UCC therefore is clearly constitutional because it has been passed by state legislatures to regulate
commercial activity with their borders.

Thank you for your patience with me, and I assure you I don't mean to be unique. (Do you know how you catch a singular rabbit? Unique up on it!) I
guess what has me so confused is that the Code seems to define "taxable income" as "gross income" and then defines "gross income" as "all
income from whatever source derived" but I can't seem to find any definition of income, in the code. Has the Internal Revenue Code defined income?

It is interesting that a lawyer would not worry about the "semantics" or verbiage of a law. Doesn't the rules of statutory construction require
that each and every word be given significance? I am interested in the mechanics of this law. It seems to me, if we are to understand this law, the
first thing we would have to know is the subject of the tax, wouldn't that be right?

I don't mean to be a pain, but I have been told on more than one occasion that in a court of law, I am presumed to know the law. If I am expected to
know the law, then I have these questions. I do appreciate the time you are taking to answer them. Thank you very much.

I am sorry, but the legal duty to pay taxes cannot be voluntarily abrogated. There is no such thing as a "common law" right not to pay taxes. As
far as the Uniform Commercial Code is concerned, it is a statute that has been passed by all the state legislatures that governs the sale of goods.
The UCC has little to do with taxes.

You have no common law right to be free from the UCC. In fact, state legislatures are well within their constitutional authority to regulate
commercial activities within their borders. The UCC therefore is clearly constitutional because it has been passed by state legislatures to regulate
commercial activity with their borders.

From a philosophical standpoint, you may or may not be right. From a strictly legal standpoint, you are dead wrong. You cannot go around breaking
laws then go to court and say the court has no jurisdiction over you because you did not enter into a contract with the government or society.

As a lawyer, I would never argue this in court. Not only would the judge quickly dismiss my case, but I would lose my license for making a frivolous
argument. (Yes, this argument is legally frivolous even by the lax standards of the US court system.)

You're missing the point, you don't contract with them in the first place! Watch this video but the audio is rubbish. Notice what's said @
50secs...

Is there a minimum taxable income? If so what is it? Do homeless people go jail when they fail to pay income tax on their panhandling income? Or
does the IRS come around and confiscate their cardboard box?

You are right. The definition of income in the code is circular, or tautological as I said. Most tax lawyers, law school professors, and judges
would agree with you.

Semantics can be important when reading a statute or regulation. From a lawyer's perspective, it is impractical to meditate on every word and
punctuation mark all the time. The text of the internal revenue code is 5 very thick volumes thick and the treasury regulations are even more dense.
The key is to hone in on a particular word when applying a law to a certain set of facts.

Let us say there is a law that states "it is illegal to drive red sports cars with fury dice hanging in the mirror, yellow bumper stickers, pink
tires, tinted windows, and side view mirrors that are less than 4 inches in width." This law is pretty long winded and it would not be smart to
focus on every word. If you get accused of driving a car that violates this statute and your lawyer is defending you, he will not focus on every word
of the statute when making his argument on your behalf.

He may focus on the word "tire" if your hubcaps are pink instead of your tires. He may focus on the word "fury" if you have leathery dice hanging
from your mirror rather than fury dice. He is going to put forth a concise and simple to follow argument that states that in order for you to be
guilty you must have pink tires and fury dice, and you are not guilty because your tires were not pink and your dice were not fury. Anything more,
e.g. mentioning bumper stickers, whether the word "yellow" includes light brown, is redundant.

If nobody claims a very poor person as a dependent, he can earn up to $9350 in income and not have to pay taxes.

In theory, it is possible for the IRS to go after homeless people for back taxes. In reality, the IRS knows it cannot get blood from a stone. It
would much rather focus its limited resources on people with large tax bills who have assets than homeless people.

Originally posted by PrisonerOfSociety
What do you think of the Brown's case:

Ed and Elaine Brown were convicted of federal tax evasion in January. They did not appear in court for their sentencing, where they were ordered to
serve five and a half years in prison. They have remained in their heavily fortified home in Plainfield, N.H., since April.

-Conspiracy to impede or injure officer
-Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States
-Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees
-etc, etc

I suppose point two could be valid, but it seems such an umbrella clause.

What about this video "paying income tax is voluntary in the U.S":

[edit on 4-1-2010 by PrisonerOfSociety]

Those charges are catch 22 charges that are thrown out when they don't want to go after you for something that may or may not be done legal or is
legal on it's face. If an FBI agent (or any agent) gets in front of a door and blocks you from leaving even though you didn't do anything wrong and
they can't stop you. What they say is If you touch me you are arrested for assaulting a police/federal officer etc. etc. during the course of his
duty. Then when you go to court and say he was illegally detaining me or wouldn't let me leave, they will either lie or say we where doing our job
around the area and they came into the work envelope and we told them to wait or take another exit and they didn't listen. Haven't you always
wondered why cops and federal employess and others don't want you filming them, it's because the camera would show their dirt and without the camera
it's your word against theirs. The ignorant around the US don't realize that until it's to late and they are on the receiving end of a Law.

Remember all of those politicians and such who didn't pay their tax bills and said whoops let me pay I made a mistake (Geitner and others). It's
becasue the people in power know the sick joke, and that is taxes are for the little people and the politically unconnected. Not the "elite" and
connected. The older I get the more I see how much I don't know about my own govt. and what has been left out of our history that should have been
in their (Marine General Smedly and the attempted takeover of the govt. by the rich elite in the country at the time wanting him to lead but he outed
them, never was in the history books).

You are right. Nobody should be taking tax advice over the internet which is why I am not giving any.

You are also right. I am a big sellout whore. However, the difference between me and you is that I understand the things I criticize and you do not.
There are portions of the tax law I do not agree with. For example, hedge fund managers can make millions of dollars a year in compensation, yet
they only get taxed at a 15% tax rate instead of a marginal rate of 39.6%.

Perhaps conspiracy theorists should be focusing on anomalies like this rather than posting all sorts of garbage about who the income tax is completely
voluntary. This is where the conspiracy lies.

i agree. i appreciate that the OP is attempting to bring "real information" to this topic. and insofar as the practical application of tax
law is concerned, i am inclined to believe the OP at his word.

however.

i am an unwitting and involuntary participant in this experiment of "government". i dont know how i came to be on this planet, but as sure as i am
here, somebody wants to take the value of my life for their own.

therefore, i get quite confused and frustrated when i am told that i am obligated to such and such a "LAW" simply because it existed before i came
into this planet (country). i certainly dont remember agreeing to any of this nonsense. and then, if i choose to NOT "voluntarily" participate, my
life and livelihood will be forcibly taken from me.

what, exactly, makes me liable to pay this tax.....other than my own cowardly deferment to the "authority" of the "LAW"?

Geitner is an interesting example of how rich people can possibly "get away" with paying taxes. First, you must keep in mind a person like Geitner
is not filling out a 1040EZ. He has a lot of different coals on the fire generating income and deductions. Sometimes the tax law is not mechanical
and there is room for reasonable disagreement, especially when things are complicated as in Geinter's case. When this is the case, someone like
Geitner can claim a deduction if they have good reason to believe it is justified.

If Geitner gets audited and the IRS eventually finds he should not have taken a deduction, he will have to pay back taxes but he will not have to pay
any penalties because he had reason to believe his deductions were justified.

However, I would not try some of the arguments posted here as "good reasons" to take deductions or avoid taxes altogether. Someone who makes some
of these frivolous arguments could be subject to penalties.

There is a "legal" answer to your question and a practical answer to your question.

The legal answer to your question is that governments (like the US government, state governments, local governments, or foreign governments) have
jurisdiction over people and property within their territorial borders. If you are living within the United States, the United States government has
jurisdiction over you. If you and your property leave the United States, generally speaking the United States has no jurisdiction over you.

The practical answer is that governments have control over police forces and other people with guns and weapons. If you do not obey the laws
governments set for you, they can send these people with weapons after you. The guys with weapons can seize your property, take you to prison, or use
other methods to get you to obey the laws. You might not think this is fair or just, but that is the way it is.

what really stings for me, tho, is that i am more than happy to pay taxes. i have absolutely NO problem contributing to the progress of society and
the maintenance of infrastructure. and yet THEY think they have to TAKE it from me.

and why do they think this?

because we all know that taxes do not work as i have described above. instead of progress and maintenance, we get bloated wasteful spending;
effectively lining the pockets of the already wealthy. this is why they must TAKE it.

it would be an altogether different ballgame if we were allowed to PAY our taxes rather than having them stolen.

If I had to briefly summarize the entire tax law, I would say the basic aim of the tax law is to make sure everyone pays their fair share. Does the
tax law always accomplish this goal? Of course not! Some very reasonable people might say that the tax laws are far off the mark!

That being said, if we left it to everyone to determine what their fair share was, most citizens would pay little or no taxes and the government would
be in trouble.

you misunderstand me. i dont mean that we each individually will just pay whatever we like. i mean that, after liability is assessed by whatever
methods are deemed appropriate, then the person would pay of their own volition.

at first it may seem like an insignificant detail. but i am confident that this one small thing is actually the kingpin of the entire system. it
disempowers the individual and encourages unaccountability of spending by the system. this disempowerment accounts for the long downward spiral of
complacency which has been witnessed over the last century.

we witness the disempowered nature of our society everyday here on ATS when people ask why "those fat stupid lazy americans" seem to just not care
anymore.

You cannot leave it up to people to pay on their own volition. Many people would not pay their tax bills unless there was some sort of coercion or
threat of coercion in place. Also, taxes are withheld from wages so the tax man can get his cut before the bar tender.

I understand what you are getting at with your traffic code analogy sir, (is it all right to call you sir? I feel a little silly referring to you as
hotpinkurinalmint. What is that, some kind of inside lawyers joke?), however, I am less concerned with traffic violations as whatever liability I may
have under those laws are not nearly as terrifying as tax law. So, to stay on point; you are telling me that I am correct about what exactly, that
income hasn't been defined by the Code? Has income been defined?

It is odd to me that when I ask these pertinent questions people always accuse me of playing semantics. I find this to be unfair as I am not the one
who brought up "taxable income" and I am not blaming you as you are merely citing the code, I understand that. However, if income is the subject of
the tax, then why the hell wouldn't the code just say that instead of playing semantics and laying a tax upon "taxable income"? Do you understand?
In my strong defense, it is not I who is playing semantics, and it is wholly disingenuous of any judge to give me grief for asking for clarification
on what specific terms mean.

I am speaking this frankly to you out of respect in deference to the effort and respect you have shown me, and I would never, of course speak that way
to a judge, but it seems to me, and please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that I am entitled to know what is meant by specific terms
within a statute or code or ordinance that seeks to make me liable for a tax or a law. Isn't this true?

To assuage any reservations you are having about my questions, as you did seem a bit defensive when I first began asking these questions, please know
that I understand that Congress has the complete and plenary power of taxation and that the income tax law seems to me to be wholly Constitutional if
it is being enforced in the proper manner. It is not the law that strikes me as being unconstitutional, but as you said, you thought I wanted to know
about the mechanics such as how it is enforced, and I do.

I am not asking you for legal advice nor am I attempting to develop any legal strategy. The simple truth is I don't understand the law, and when I
am told that I must sign under penalty of perjury that all the above is true and correct, then I have the right to know that all the above is true and
correct, do I not?

As an independent contractor, nothing is taken from me, if you mean some money being taken before I receive my checks. It isn't. I have to determine
at the end of the year my liabilities and then pay them. Now, if I am not careful during the year and spend all my money and don't have the cash to
settle my liabilities, then I can face penalties. So it depends on how you get paid and what you claim on your I-4 if you work for a salary or are
paid by the hour vs. earning straight commision as I do in real estate. I know people claim more dependants and receive more of their weekly paycheck
or whatever. But, when it comes time to file, you have to claim your actual dependants and could be liable to make a large payment to the IRS. That is
why most of the time it is taken from paychecks through witholding. Some people would spend the money and get themselves into trouble by having tax
liabilities at the end of the year and then be subject to severe penalties and interest, which can end up with wage garnishments, etc. So I don't
think that you absolutely have it taken, because I know I don't. But, I also know I better have it when I file my taxes.

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